Extremis

Yesterday I highlighted  Angle Inlet - the most northerly settlement in the forty eight contiguous states of America. Today I am heading further north - to Alaska in fact. That is where you will find the most northerly location in all of America. It is called Point Barrow and its co-ordinates are 71° 23′ 20″ N, 156° 28′ 45″ W.

Though it is a remote spot and pretty inhospitable in the depths of wintertime, the area had special significance to  indigenous Iñupiat  people for over a thousand years before Point Barrow was "discovered". It was named after Sir John Barrow, a senior figure in the British Admiralty. That was as recently as 1826.

Frederick Beechey named the headland on behalf of Sir John Barrow

At Point Barrow there are burial mounds and there have been other archaeological finds. Even today it remains a base for Inuit fishing and hunting trips. I am pleased to note that the nearby village of Barrow had its name changed back to Utqiagvik in 2016.

How audacious and disrespectful  it was for European newcomers to ignore indigenous place names in past times. Not just on the northern shores of Alaska but elsewhere in the world from New Zealand  to South Africa.

Finally - and this is totally unrelated - my Citroen 2CV picture came fourth in the picture of the week competition over at Geograph and my image of the old windmill in a sea of flowering rapeseed came second. So near and yet so far - just like Point Barrow.

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/pOisrYn

Miraculous Monday

 Heading to PT today. One body part feels stronger, another feels weaker. Working on balance is testing my mettle. I’m a flailing whale, not a graceful gazelle. I know everything takes time, but do I feel pangs of what if. Why did God make me this way, where marching in place for thirty seconds straight makes my equilibrium shake. It also doesn’t help that I’m woefully out of shape. That’s a whole other issue. I can only handle one at a time. I had to talk to my best friend to remind me that CP is one part of my story, and I’m finally learning the other parts of my story. The world has defined so much by that one part, and so have I. Here’s to learning who I am. I really don’t know who I am now, versus who I was before. It feels so odd getting to know all of myself. It’s very odd, but a little exciting. Do I write the story of the scared being afraid of its own shadow, to breaking free of my own expectation. That is the question. I can’t answer that right now. I’ve spent a life, hiding. I spent a life seeking. I’ve spent a life in deep reflection and utter contemplation. I’ve wondered and wandered a globe searching for meaning for my life. My life that can’t be measured in societal standards and norms. No matter how much PT is working my body, my mind is undergoing bulldozing. Where what you once thought has been completely obliterated. God is using what I didn’t want to get me to what I’m in need of. Miraculous. 

from R's rue https://ift.tt/hwzEoSN

May

 

The seasons seem to be hurrying along this year after a bloody awful winter. 

It’s May already and the start of the month means that my Montana Clematis is in flower again.

It covers the garden gate arch with pretty pink flowers and suddenly the back garden is transported back in to a secret garden again. Private and enclosed as it was always designed to be.

We’ve had too many bank holidays , I’m sick of them

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/FYJKI4m